


Faith In The Fourth Era

by mournholdvacation



Category: Elder Scrolls
Genre: ALMSIVI, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-22
Updated: 2019-03-22
Packaged: 2019-11-28 01:30:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18201653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mournholdvacation/pseuds/mournholdvacation
Summary: In the Fourth Age, the followers of ALMSIVI still seek to worship their gods.





	Faith In The Fourth Era

It is a dim morning as he enters the temple.

The healers are already there; whispering a soft prayer as they dip their hands into the basin of clear water, praising their goddess as they raise their eyes to her banner. 

He kneels at the altar. Lifts a hand in worship before the cracked stone and tattered fabric. Greets his gods as old friends and holy guardians. 

Saints, they call them now. False gods, who betrayed, lied, and stole. No longer worthy of sincere praise, no longer worthy of the Dunmer people. 

No longer worthy to grace their homes.

The first one is a young woman. Thin, with soft eyes and hands that linger on the offering bowl to the Mother for long moments after she has placed the herbs.

‘She used to be a Hand,’ she tells him later, as she traces the patterns upon the rug. ‘Her pride and joy, next to her children. She wanted it to be a family thing, a tradition. The first daughter to the Mother, an act of devotion.’

He nods his head, seeks to comfort her for a story he knows all too well and one that has rang out many times in these stone walls. 

‘I pray to her,’ she says, and the first tears glisten in her eyes. ‘I tell her of my deeds and ask her to bless my hands, and I leave offerings of my medicine at the altars and temples. Not in her name though, not out loud.’

A moment of silence.

‘Does she hate me?’

‘No.’

The second is an older man, cane in hand, that limps across the floor to kneel at the banner of Clockwork and sigh. 

From a distance, the priest notes the false leg, the bruises and dents and wonders if, in another age, it would be golden.

‘Light of Knowledge,’ the man prays. ‘If your people yet … live, allow me yet to meet one.’

He learns of the tale later, when they have poured the first drinks. 

‘One of my own ancestors,’ mumbles the man as he leans on his cane. ‘Said to have seen the light of the city himself. It’s a curse I think, to lose our limbs. He was blessed by the god, given a new life.’

‘Do you envy him?’

‘No. I’m glad he had the chance.’

The temple grows quiet around noon. Gives the pirest time to clean, to pray, to think. 

Somewhere, far off, he imagines he can hear the cries to the Queen of the Skyr. They will be gathered in the temple dusk to dawn,, feasting and celebrating and trying to salvage what happiness they can in their new wasteland.

Does she pity them at all, he wonders. Does she sneer? Does she smile when they look at their broken lives and crawl to her on their knees seeking love and a little light? 

There is a Buoyant Armiger here now, seated before the younger ones, reading the Lessons as only one of his order can. 

‘You should have heard it from our Lord’s own mouth,’ he mourns, as he gently turns the page. ‘You should have heard his laugh, and his wit, and his seen the - ‘

One of the younger lads lays a hand on his arm.

A woman arrives. Not a dunmer, as so many are, but a young Nord. An adventurer, heavy with armor and burdened by a sword. 

‘These are for you,’ she says, and spills open her pack to present the temple with three books.

Children’s tales written by Mercy, an old tour book of the holy city, and a copy of the first five lessons. 

She does not accept payment. 

‘They are for you,’ she repeats again, as she clasps her hands and kneels her head before the trice blessed’s altar. 

Another stranger then. Another Nord who looks ashamed to be here, among the strangers who have occupied a isle that was once his. 

‘I came to deliver food,’he says, voice breathless from the long trek. ‘Out of the way up here.’

He does not bow before the altar, merely watches as another does and lays a hand on their shoulder at the sound of a soft sob. Whispers a prayer of peace, in the name of Kyne. 

‘Three healed today,’ the healer tells the priest later as they sit and watch the sun sink toward the ground. 

‘You do good work,’ he tells her.

‘We do our Lady’s work.’

It is their turn to stay the night. To offer shelter to those lost, and love to those lonely. They do not mind it, and cherish the company. 

‘Is it here,’ the mother asks, her form materializing before them as they tear their gaze from the horizon. ‘The temple.’

They rise. Guide her and weary husband to the altar; offer prayer, food, and drink and a pillow for the little one upon which to rest. 

‘We’ve presented him to the ancestors,’ the father tells them. ‘We want the Three to know his name as well.’

They lay him before the altar then. Whisper the seven-syllable spell, and ask their blessings upon one who has never felt the pain of their loss. 

‘Shall I teach you a prayer for him?’ the healer asks later, when they are seated together in front of the fire and content in the humming of the shore. 

“I would like that, I think. We were not left much.’

The priest rests his head upon the chair then, closes his eyes and whispers a prayer of thanks. Imagines a new temple, a restored temple. One where Their names are not carving upon brick but written in gold, and silver, and upon the tongues of the people once more. 

And lets the child’s hymn carry him into dream. 

“Praise to the Mother, Father, and Lord.

Praise to the Three, whom I adore.”


End file.
